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I'm talking about the 3.5" floppy drive. I did some research but could not come up with the proper name. What I know is that it uses a ribbon cable with a 34-pin variant of the 40-pin IDE, but it's not called an IDE? The term IDE seems to always refer to the 40-pin so I'm a bit confused.

If I posted this in the wrong site, please refer me to the correct one.

Err
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    Everyone I know always called them "floppy drive cables" to distinguish them from the wider hard drive cables. – Ward - Reinstate Monica May 18 '12 at 23:16
  • @people-who-closed-my-queestion: How is my question not related to servers? Also, if you're closing, would you kindly refer me to the site I'm suppose to use? – Err May 25 '12 at 03:53

1 Answers1

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it looks like but actually not an IDE cable. it is described in detail here: http://www.interfacebus.com/PC_Floppy_Drive_PinOut.html

I still have one if you really need it :-)

thanks to Chris McKeown for pointing out my mistake.

johnshen64
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    Forgive me if I've missed something, but that link is referring to an IDC (insulation displacement connnector) cable, rather than an IDE cable specifically. Although an IDE cable is also an IDC cable, IDE refers to the fact that the drive controller hardware is on the drive itself rather than on the host system, not how the cable is physically constructed. – Chris McKeown May 18 '12 at 23:11
  • um, i think you are right. i have seen the floppy cables referred to as EIDE cable so assumed that they are IDE, which I thought is just an interface specification. this link makes the distinction clearer: http://www.kitchentablecomputers.com/drcables1.php – johnshen64 May 18 '12 at 23:25
  • Thanks, john. However, not even that article says that it is an IDE but I'm gonna go with Chris' definition of the word IDE and simply call it a 34-pin IDE instead of simply IDE. – Err May 18 '12 at 23:27
  • yeah, Chris was right. I fixed the answer based on his feedback. I just always thought it was IDE :-) – johnshen64 May 18 '12 at 23:28
  • I'll accept your answer, wish I could up-vote though but don't have enough rep on this stack exchange site. – Err May 18 '12 at 23:36
  • @Err - It's probably incorrect to refer to the cable as a 34-pin IDE. Floppy drives do not have their controller hardware onboard and therefore can't be referred to as IDE devices. Probably more correct to refer to it as a 34-pin IDC cable (or an IDC34 as some sites seem to refer to them) – Chris McKeown May 19 '12 at 21:50